


Own Your Wrongs And Keep Them Near

by HelloDoctorMorphine



Series: Pop Punk Kids AU [5]
Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Birthdays, Closeted Relationship, High School, John Hughes film references because I'm trash, M/M, Pizza, Siblings, Suburbia, oh yeah pop punk kids AU is back and kicking hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-23
Updated: 2014-11-23
Packaged: 2018-02-26 19:11:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2663111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HelloDoctorMorphine/pseuds/HelloDoctorMorphine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pete’s waiting for Patrick, leaned against his Camry, after school.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Own Your Wrongs And Keep Them Near

**Author's Note:**

> Wow. Screw Nanowrimo. Screw it a lot. I've all but given up on my novel this year, and have poured myself into this AU instead. I missed it. I'm not sure if I still need to be tagging this as underage, since 17 is age of consent in Illinois, but nationally, 18 is still kind of the magic number. Oh well.  
> Underage warning for a consensual relationship between a legal adult and a minor. No beta, so I apologize for mistakes. Title from Certain by Set Your Goals. Enjoy.

Pete’s waiting for Patrick, leaned against his Camry, after school.

“I heard your mom had to borrow your car today,” Pete calls out as Patrick picks his pace up to a jog to meet him, “so we’re going out.”

Patrick looks around, scans the parking lot for people; he’s the first person out, so he kisses Pete before giving him a look.

“Define going out?” Patrick asks, raising a thin, red-blonde eyebrow and folding his arms as he leans against the car next to Pete. 

Pete smiles, a curled-lip face that’s paired off with a crunched in shrug that presses his shoulders to his ears. “Like… I’m taking you out. On a _date_.”

Patrick frowns. “We go on dates.”

Pete gives Patrick a stern glare. “We go to shows together. We don’t actually go on dates. I swear I won’t rest until I man up, dress nicely, take you to a nice restaurant, and pay for the entire meal.”

Patrick looks Pete up and down, inspecting Pete’s skinny khakis, red flannel shirt, and bobble hat that looks a little too warm for the second week of April. 

“...You look like a walking stereotype. I thought you said we weren’t going to a show?”

Pete punches Patrick’s shoulder, pouting. “I look good, okay? I even put eyeliner on.”

Patrick looks up, and, holy shit, _he did,_ a thin, smudgy almond shape that blends in with the short strokes that are his eyelashes. Patrick hasn’t recalled Pete as wearing eyeliner for a while. It’s bizarrely hot, something Patrick could never admit aloud. 

“Where are you taking me?” Patrick asks, right as Joe sides up next to them.

“Well, _that_ was a weird place to start listening in. Pete, did you purposely park your car next to mine?”

As Joe glares while unlocking his dented, dark green Honda, Pete puckers his lips exaggeratedly in Joe's direction, batting his eyes. “Joseph Troseph. Love of my life and light in my eyes. Of _course_ I did.”

Joe rolls his eyes, straightens the sleeves of his tank top, and edges around the door of the car so he can get in. “Up yours, Wentz.”

As the forest mass wheels off, Pete nudges Patrick. “So, whaddya want? Indian? Pizza? Sushi? I will seriously blow all my money on you."

Patrick knits his eyebrows. “Do you mean you’re going to blow all of your _mom’s_ money on me?”

Pete’s eyes go wide as he stares up at the sky, blush tracing violently across his cheeks.

“...No?” He asks himself, turning to Patrick. 

Patrick smiles affectionately, pushing Pete off the passenger door so he can get in the car. “It’s okay, I still love you.”

Pete moves, and runs around the car so he can get into the driver’s seat. His bobble hat starts falling off his head, so when he gets in, he just yanks it off and throws it into the backseat. 

Patrick smiles at him from the passenger seat.

“Surprise me,” he says. 

 

Peter Lewis Kingston Wentz the Third has driven Patrick to a goddamn pizza shop.

Which, yeah, okay, it’s a local joint that’s actually got some really good food, but Patrick can’t help but give Pete a bewildered look, saying, “seriously? Pizza?” Patrick looks down at the black jeans, Ramones shirt, and _actually decent_ gray jacket he changed into when Pete quickly dropped him off back home. “I’m overdressed, and you’re a predictable fuckhead.”

“Yeah, but I’m _your_ predictable fuckhead,” Pete grins, leaning over the center console to kiss Patrick. “C’mon, we’ve got carb-loaded _trash_ to eat.”

Patrick sighs, but allows himself to laugh a little as he gets out of the car with Pete, slips their hands together, and lets his boyfriend walk him in. 

The second they get through the entryway, their hands break apart, and Patrick looks around to see if anyone noticed as Pete walks up to the host’s podium and requests a table for two.

The host, a stout, football-player-looking guy with a five o'clock shadow grabs two menus, sizes Pete and Patrick up, and walks them to a small booth next to the back wall.

Patrick goes red as they sit down. Seriously? In the back?

It’s almost like it’s not worth staying in the closet.

Pete sits down, and leans his head on his elbows, staring up at Patrick adoringly as he snakes a hand out to grab Patrick’s hand. 

“I love you so much,” Pete mumbles, kissing Patrick’s fingernails. 

“I love you too,” Patrick whispers back, “but, seriously, there is a mom with two young kids that’s giving you the stinkeye.”

Pete looks up, turns his head, and meets eyes with the mom. She’s scowling in disgust as she cuts her Kindergarten-aged son’s pepperoni pizza.

Pete bares his teeth, mocking, and turns back to Patrick, reaching to hold his hand. “She has a salty vagina. Fuck her.”

Patrick chokes on his own spit. 

Their waitress comes, a girl who looks like she’s in her senior year of high school, and Pete closes his menu, ordering two large pizzas with the promise that _yes, he will eat all of it,_ and as she leaves, confused, Pete and Patrick explode with laughter. 

As the one mom leaves, she scowls at Pete and Patrick, and both her kids scowl after her with the same intensity. Patrick thinks fleetingly of lectures about ‘boys go with girls’ and ‘bad lifestyles’. 

 

Patrick’s sat on his bed, writing a paper for his US History class, when Mrs. Stump walks in, setting a few cookies on a plate on the bed and asking, “so, Patrick, what do you want to do for your birthday?”

Patrick jumps up, stops the Knuckle Puck that’s playing on his computer, and realizes that _he’s turning seventeen in a week_. He can’t suppress the idea that he’s getting old.

“Well, what do you mean, what do I want?” Patrick gives his mother a sidelong look. “I want a lot of things. I’d like my graduation to come a little bit sooner.”

Mrs. Stump sighs, and leans against the side of Patrick’s bed. “I mean, what do you want to _do_ for your birthday?”

Patrick shrugs, looking down dejectedly at his homework. “What would be easiest?”

Mrs. Stump shrugs. “Most likely just having dinner and a small party here.” Patrick gives her an uncertain look, and she continues. “You could just have your band over to watch movies or something, if that’s what you want.”

 

And this is how, on the Saturday night before Patrick’s birthday, Patrick finds himself piled on a couch with Pete, Joe, and Andy, marathoning John Hughes movies into the dead of night. 

Pete curls his fingers in Patrick’s hair and starts massaging his scalp as Long Duk Dong tries to use silverware as chopsticks in _Sixteen Candles_. When Joe laughs at the scene, Andy gives him a glare and mutters something about the “perpetuation of stereotypes” that Patrick wholeheartedly agrees with, but can’t find the energy to voice. 

Patrick vaguely hears his mother come down the stairs to check on the four boys. They all look up in unison, blinking confusedly. 

“You four okay?” She asks. 

They nod. Pete reaches one of his arms down from Patrick’s head to wrap around his chest, bumping his cheekbone against the crown of Patrick’s skull. Mrs. Stump notices the motion, and stiffens a little, but doesn’t say anything. When she meets eyes with Patrick, she gives him a look, as if to say, _I’m allowing this for your happiness._

Patrick looks away, sheepishly, and turns his eyes back to the movie, shifting against Pete’s chest. 

As Mrs. Stump mutters a _don’t be up too late_ , and walks back upstairs, Joe looks over to Pete and Patrick and asks, “wait, so she’s actually okay with you guys now?”

Pete shrugs. “Kinda? Patrick can do better than a Poli-Sci dropout.”

Patrick elbows Pete. “That’s a lie, and you know that.”

“That’s the truth, and you know you’re lying,” Pete counters, as he squeezes Patrick’s chest, “but I’m really glad you still love me.”

Patrick huffs a laugh. It’s an argument for another time.

 

On his birthday that Monday, Patrick half expects Joe and Andy to wheel a cake with Pete in it into the band hall. 

Instead, Pete walks in before Joe and Andy, looking over his shoulder and holding something to his chest under his jacket. the second the door closes behind him, he runs to Patrick and says, “cover me.”

“Why?” Patrick blinks confusedly. “Pete, please don’t tell me you brought weed.”

Pete unzips his jacket, still looking over his shoulder, and reveals that he’s carrying a pan of brownies - _frosted brownies,_ he must have gotten his _mom_ to make them - as well as a relatively large knife and a spatula to pry the brownies out. 

“Jeez, dude, I don’t remember the security here as _ever_ being that scary,” Pete shudders, laying the brownie pan on the floor. Patrick gets a peek of the frosting: chocolate, with white icing writing out ‘Happy Birthday, Patrick!” in wonky, tilted writing. 

“Yeah, maybe because it looks like you’re coming in to do a drug deal,” Patrick mutters.

Pete looks down at himself, tries to wipe away a piece of frosting that stuck itself onto his blue Real Friends shirt with a lick at his thumb. 

“Because, y’know, I totally look like a drug dealer,” Pete laughs, resigning to the chocolate stain embedded into the cotton. “The short ex-student that literally _reeks_ gayness.”

“I’m sure there are a lot of gay drug dealers, Pete,” Patrick chides. 

“And I’m not anticipating my join into their ranks,” Pete snorts. “Now, come on, sit down, I expect to eat this entire pan of brownies with you by the end of practice.” He starts cutting out a square that’s literally a quarter of the pan. “This is good for you, right? Like, can you eat that or do you want more?”

"Dude," Patrick whistles, "There's literally more cake that my mom's insisted on making, I couldn't eat a corner of that."

Pete perks up. “ _There’s more cake?_ ”

Patrick finds himself laughing at the ridiculousness of Pete’s face. “Yeah, sure, I’ll bring you some tonight.”

Pete cuts himself a piece of brownie that’s about the size of his palm. “So, what do I do, sneak in through your window? Beg outside your front door?”

“The latter sounds acceptable. My mom seems to like you more when you’re freezing to death. She gets a little more sympathetic.”

Pete’s laugh is loud, braying, with his head thrown back and a few brownie crumbs flying off the chapped skin of his lips. “Yeah, that seems to be the case.” He swallows his brownie, and looks up at Patrick expectantly. “So, just… Text me and I’ll come by to collect my cake?” 

“Yeah, sure,” Patrick grins, and sits beside Pete, edging their sides together. “Cut me a brownie - no, not that large, try again.”

 

Patrick’s not expecting to see his brother and sister in their mother’s house when he finally gets home.

The two of them seem to be catching up around the kitchen table with Mrs. Stump as they eat what looks like cupcakes, when Megan turns, noticing him, and yells, “Patrick!” 

Megan kicks her chair out from under her, and it skids a foot away as she bounds towards Patrick, wrapping him in a hug powerful enough to crush souls. 

“I’ve missed you,” she says, reaching up to ruffle his hair, “living in the city sucks.”

“You just have bad roommates,” Patrick counters, but tries to hug her back nevertheless. “It’s probably not as horrible as you think it is.” There’s an unsaid _I’d kill to be out of this place_ laced in the statement.

“Tell her that, she goes to me to bitch first,” Kevin says, and Patrick hears him walk over, a little calmer than their sister. “Hey, happy birthday, kid.”

“Thanks,” Patrick calls out, “I’d actually say hi if Megan would let me go.”

 _”Never,”_ Megan hisses, “I haven’t seen my baby brother in a _year_.”

“I haven’t seen him in a year either, and you actually live in the area,” Kevin counters. 

“It’s not my fault you left the area to go to college.”

Kevin forces Megan’s arms off Patrick, and pushes her away so he can quickly pull Patrick in a brief, but equally affectionate embrace. 

“So, what’s up with you? How’s your seventeenth birthday been so far?” Kevin asks, nudging Patrick’s shoulder.

Patrick shrugs. “I dunno. I guess it was a better Monday than usual?”

Megan turns to where Mrs. Stump is still sitting down at the kitchen table, shaking her head, humored. “Hear that? _Better Monday than usual._ Mom, your son’s a dork.”

“Oh, believe me, all three of you are,” Mrs. Stump sighs, resigned, “I’m gonna go check on the cake.”

Kevin frowns, and shares his expression with Megan and Patrick. “I’m a dork? I’m not a dork.”

Megan raises her eyebrow. “Two words: IBM internship.”

Patrick actually finds himself laughing at that. “I forgot about that.”

But then, _then,_ Megan’s small, quirked smile deepens into a sly smirk, and her blue eyes fall into slits. “So, I gotta ask.”

Kevin and Patrick’s faces fall at the same time. “No, Megan, you don’t-”

“How’s _Pete?_ ” She asks, grinning. 

Mrs. Stump sighs as she checks the knife that she just stuck into the center of the cake that’s in the oven. “Do we have to talk about him? I thought this was a family get together.”

Megan’s smirk falls into an open-jaw blankness. She lowers her voice, and leans her head in so she can mutter to her two brothers, “god, she must really hate him now. What did he do?”

Patrick swallows, shrugging for having a lack of anything else to do to express his nerves. “Well, a lot, given it’s Mom’s book.”

Megan and Kevin both shrug, but more out of grudging agreement. “Can’t argue with that.”

Patrick’s sister claps, grin suddenly back, but cheerier and less sly. “Well, if this is a family affair, we’ll worry about the Pete fiasco until tomorrow.”

Patrick frowns, shaking his head. “There’s no fiasco-”

“Patrick, try a cupcake,” Megan blurts, cutting into his statement. She takes the plate from the table, and shoves it under his nose. “Eat, kid.”

Patrick shakes his head, but laughs, taking a cupcake and peeling the wrapper off as he settles into more familiar, more comfortable conversations with his older siblings. 

It’s good to have them home.

 

Of course, when Pete comes later to collect his slice of cake, Megan follows Patrick to the door and demands that Pete talk to her about his dropout experience and what his and Patrick’s band has been doing. 

Patrick lets it happen. Fighting with older sisters guarantees loss.

 

There’s this weird energy at the end of a school year as a Junior, the freedom that characterized graduating from lower years now laced with this inevitable stress, this sick wonder of not knowing what will happen in the span of another year, laced with the looming fear of adulthood. 

Or, so Joe says, cigarette hanging between his fingers as he and Patrick sit on the collective hoods of their cars on the last day of school, slowly eating lunch.

“Like, I know we have a plan, like, _we,_ band, but everyone around us is just kinda terrified, and it’s starting to rub off, y’know?” Joe asks, more to himself than Patrick.

Patrick chews his apple, shrugging. “I guess? I guess I’ve been more preoccupied with the band, and figuring out this tour, more than anything?”

Joe raises a finger on the hand that’s not holding a cigarette. “Correction: you’ve stopped giving a shit about these people.”

“Yeah, that too,” Patrick says, after a moments hesitation to confirm it.

Joe laughs, loudly, throwing his head back. “I knew it.” He frowns, knocks ashes off his cigarette, wipes them away, and says, “hey, so, are you thinking about college?”

Patrick blinks slowly. “Wait, what?”

“College. Higher education. Y’know, that place you go-”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, but… What?” Patrick shakes his head, as if that could get rid of the disconnect. “I wasn’t expecting you to ask me about college.”

Joe shrugs. “I mean, it’s cool, dude. I just didn’t know if you’d have plans for it or anything.”

Patrick sighs, loud, drawn out. “I… I _don’t_ , in all honesty. And I know I should, y’know? Like, Megan’s out of college now, she’s doing her own thing, and Kevin’s got an internship at IBM over the summer, and I have to _live up to that._ ” Patrick starts moving his hand in a wave, trying to coax himself into continuing his point.

“...But you don’t want to live up to them,” Joe finishes.

Patrick’s shoulders fall. “Yeah, that.”

Joe smiles. “Well, you don’t have to. Stop trying to tell yourself that.” His smile folds itself into a concerned frown. “Unless… Is this also about Pete dropping out?”

Patrick shrugs. “Maybe? Just a little?” He huffs. “It’s… It’s more about how my mom feels about him being a dropout. She… She’d probably think I was following a-” Patrick sits up to make quotation marks out of his hands- “bad example set up by an even worse boyfriend.”

“Like he was dragging you down the downward spiral that your mom sees in him?”

“Yeah, I… Yeah.” Patrick frowns at Joe. “How are you so goddamn-”

“Wise? Perceptive? Sage?” Joe shrugs, laughing to himself. “I just know people.”

A silence falls between them, until Patrick asks, “what about you?”

Joe shakes his head as he finishes his cigarette, throwing it into the asphalt. “What about me, what?”

“Have you been thinking about college?”

Joe gives this odd look in the general direction of New Trier’s front entrance, before whipping his head back around. “Promise you won’t laugh?”

“I’m gonna do nothing after high school, I don’t have room to laugh at you.”

Joe smiles, more to himself, and says, “I’m thinking Psychology. I’ve been looking at a program at U of Chicago.”

Patrick’s eyebrows raise, eyes widening. “No way.”

“Yeah. I mean, if the band works out, I’ll stick with it, whenever that happens, but…” Joe takes a bite of the half-eaten sandwich that’s sitting in front of him. “I mean, if I know how people work, might as well learn how to help them, too, right?”

“Joe, that’s great. I think you should really go for it.”

Joe’s eyes widen, some kind of mix of amazement and gratitude playing behind them. “Wait, seriously?”

“Why not? I think you’d be really awesome at it, and if that makes you happy, why should I stop you?”

Joe’s shoulders fall; Patrick couldn’t tell that he was even tensing them. “...Thank you.”

“Why?” 

Joe shrugs. “I dunno. Like, my mom’s fine with it, but my dad doesn’t think I’ll be good with the workload, and the counselor said I don’t have the grades for it, and my teachers have been giving me shit for _actually doing my homework,_ , and… It’s just been a weird last couple months. Honestly can’t wait to get on this tour in a week, I’m so sick of this bullshit.”

“...I’m sorry, Joe.”

Joe waves Patrick off. “Nah, dude, it’s not your fault.”

The bell suddenly rings, the two-tone echoing across the parking lot. Patrick and Joe both panic, and pack their things up, slipping down from the hoods of their cars. 

“Hey, uh, see you at the end of the day?” Joe asks.

Patrick nods as he reaches down to pick up a fallen notebook. “Yeah, dude, good luck with your last three classes.”

Joe smiles, almost wistfully, and says, “thanks.”

As he runs off, Patrick catches him stopping to crush his cigarette under the heel of his Vans.

 

Pete’s waiting for him in front as Patrick runs out of the front doors. 

As Patrick walks _(runs)_ into Pete’s arms, Pete laughs, saying, “hey, congrats, dude. You’re now only a year away from graduation.”

Patrick laughs into Pete’s shoulder. “Yeah, I guess I am, if you word it like that.”

Patrick was among the first fifty or so to leave the building, but now there’s a steadier flow of students fleeing from the brick confines. Many of them walk out to the parking lot with determination, but a few give Patrick a sidelong look, bouncing their attention between him and Pete with confusion. 

“Am I getting stared at?” Patrick asks.

Pete laughs. “I think I am a little more.”

“I wonder why. Not a lot of people here have a full tattoo sleeve comprised of Tim Burton characters.”

Pete laughs, and kisses Patrick’s ear. “Nah, you’re right. I deserve to be stared at. Hell, I’m the creepy older boyfriend, I shouldn’t even be here if I don’t want security on my ass.”

Patrick laughs, and pulls away so that he’s cradling Pete’s elbows in his hands, holding each other at forearm’s distance. “How’d you get here?”

Pete looks down, blushing faintly. “Uh… I got Hillary to drop me off?”

Patrick sniggers. “You got _your younger sister_ to drop you off? I mean, I didn’t even know she was in _town_ , but _still_.”

“Okay, fine, laugh at me, she was going back into the city today, this saves gas. I’m saving the _earth_ , Patrick, what are you doing?”

Patrick shrugs. “I am planning on going home and listening to every Blink album I own at window-breaking volumes. You interested in joining me?”

“I mean, if your mom will let me in your house-”

“I’ll force you in,” Patrick laughs, “I think you’re starting to grow onto her, in all honesty. Like, now that she’s gotten over the shock and novelty of you? She’s actually kinda chill about it.”

“Chill about it, meaning, she doesn’t like me, but will maybe allow me in your house with you so long as it’s on band pretense and we keep the door open?”

Patrick snorts. “Something like that.”

Pete nudges Patrick’s arm. “Hey, ready to leave?”

Patrick lets himself acknowledge the sadness that settles in when he hears that, before coming to terms with the fact that, for just this moment, Pete means leaving the school’s property.

He nods, and releases his hands from Pete’s elbows, joining their fingers. “Yeah, I’m ready to leave.”

**Author's Note:**

> Again, my Tumblr is cartoonsaboutjoey, if you care to ask questions or give me prompts or even just talk to me. I like people, and I like talking to them.


End file.
